


trade all my tomorrows (for just one yesterday)

by who_even_knows



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author might be slightly biased, BAMF Tony Stark, But can be really dumb, Civil War Team Iron Man, Destiny, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Protective Edwin Jarvis, Redemption, Second Chances, Slow Build, Time Travel, Tony is really smart, Tony-centric, always female Toni Stark, gender swap, more to be added - Freeform, of a sort, soul marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-18 02:06:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/who_even_knows/pseuds/who_even_knows
Summary: A night spent in the lab results in a bizarre twist, and 43-year-old Toni Stark wakes up in her six-year-old body in 1980. After proving that it’s the real deal, she sets out to right some wrongs and maybe save a few loved ones along the way.Of course, if she had realized this would come to include a certain silver-armed geriatric with a nasty habit of attempting to assassinate her parents, she probably would have taken up drinking at a younger age.





	1. Chapter 1

Toni Stark, genius-billionaire-playgirl-philanthropist, absolutely detested mornings. Only bad things ever happened in the morning, like board meetings or Pepper bearing fresh paperwork or congressional hearings. The only kind of morning Toni ever liked was the kind where she was already at work in the lab because she had forgotten to go to sleep the night before, distracted by whatever project dominated her attention.  
  
Last night, however, had been the slow, sluggish kind that came after a long day of battling to have her voice heard, and literal battle with the idiots who kept attacking New York. Shoving her pillow over her head, she turned away from the light that was streaming in through the window “Friday, kill the lights, would you?” she mumbled sleepily. Seconds passed with no reply.  
  
“Friday?” Toni pulled her head out, pushing her matted, tangled hair away from her face and rubbing her eyes. She took in the blurry room in confusion. “Friday, did someone move me from the lab last night?” When there was still no reply, Toni started to panic. The last time that one of her AIs failed to answer, Jarvis had been forcibly shut off by Ultron and she never really got him back.  
  
_Breathe, Toni. Calm down and assess._ She took a deep breath and immediately froze. For the past several years, Toni had grown accustomed to the unwanted but vital weight and pressure in her chest from the reactor. Along with that weight came a strain on her breathing, as having the reactor housed in her chest significantly decreased her lung capacity. For the first time since she had woken up in that cave, her breathing didn’t feel labored. In fact, it felt alarmingly easy.  
  
Her hands shot to her chest, fingers yanking back the fabric of her night shirt. Dumbfounded, she barely noticed the absence of the reactor, her attention focused on her smooth, unscarred, _flat_ chest.  
  
“What…” She stared at her chest, then noticed how small her hands were and how uncalloused and smooth they were. Toni stared down in horrified fascination at what she could only assume was the body of a four-year-old. “What. The. Fuck.” In her astonishment, she failed to notice the door opening.  
  
“Now, young Miss. Far be it from me to tell your father what type of vocabulary is pertinent, but those are not the words of a young lady,” a familiar British voice chastised.  
  
Toni froze, afraid to look up. She knew this dream, she was achingly familiar with it. It had been years since she’d had it, but it still hurt just as much. She knew that when she looked up, Jarvis would smile at her and lay her breakfast tray on the table by the window, just as he had done every morning before she was sent off to school. He would reach to help her out of bed, and she would wake up before she made it to the table or had a chance to say anything to him.  
  
“Antonia? Are you well this morning?” Jarvis questioned, concern coloring his voice.  
  
Toni shook her head, clamping her lips together. She refused to look at him, because she knew as soon as she did he would go away.  
  
“Toni…” Jarvis knelt by the bed, and Toni jerked her head away, staring at the wall. “Toni, is this about last night?” He placed his hand on her head, smoothing her hair back. “I know your father was abrupt, and there’s really no excuse for it. That’s just how he is with everyone.”  
  
Through her sadness, Toni managed to snort and roll her eyes. “I’m well aware of his asshole tendencies, don’t worry about it.”  
  
The sound of startled laughter that was quickly smothered with a delicate cough had Toni pausing. This was usually the point of the dream where she woke up. _What gives?  
  
_ “Well, be that as it may, young Miss, I still maintain that that kind of language is best left to others. And now, I’m afraid your breakfast is getting cold. Come, let’s get you out of bed.”  
  
Finally giving in, she turned to face Jarvis, curiosity over the lengthened dream getting the best of her. “What’s going on?” she demanded, drinking in the details of his face. His greying hair was perfectly combed, and his suit was meticulously smooth and painstakingly in place.  
  
His blue eyes crinkled in confusion, a rare look on Edwin Jarvis. “It’s Monday morning, Toni. It’s time for breakfast and then your lessons.” He frowned slightly and reached for her forehead.  
  
The mini Toni grinned, marveling at this twist in her usual dreams. “Excellent, let’s get to it then.”  
  
Toni’s not sure how much time actually passed. After breakfast, Jarvis took her down to the music room, where she baffled him by breezing through “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Once that was over, she sat with her language tutor and ran circles around her, conversing in words the tutor didn’t even recognize. At that point, Jarvis decided to let her go for the day, confused and more than a little concerned at this shift in his young charge.  
  
Toni, on the other hand, was growing leery of the dream. It felt like too much time had passed and she was ready to wake up, nostalgia be damned. She had several projects that needed her attention, after all. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t wake up. She tried to go back to sleep, but woke fifteen minutes later, disoriented and still very much a small child in her childhood home. She even tried that trick from _Inception_ , where the characters would make their brains think they were falling to their death so it would snap them awake. All she got from that was a scraped elbow and a worried look from Jarvis.  
  
By the time dinner rolled around, Toni was seriously beginning to worry. Something wasn’t right; there was no reason for her to still be asleep. And the imagery of this dream was just too real. She was seeing details in the décor, smells, and tastes that shouldn’t be so vivid in her mind.

She picked at her pork chops quietly, trying to think back to what she had been doing before she “woke up” earlier. She remembered being in the lab, bantering with Friday and messing with the firing mechanism in one of the suit’s gauntlets. Then it all starts to go fuzzy.  
  
“Antonia, those vegetables weren’t placed on your plate for decorative purposes,” Jarvis intoned from his spot near the door.  
  
If she wasn’t currently freaking out about her situation, she’d scoff at Howard’s stupid rule of “the help” not being allowed to dine with the family. It was one of many rules from her childhood she had made a point to ignore wholeheartedly. “Yes, Jarvis,” she replied absentmindedly.  
  
She missed the concerned glance he exchanged with Rosa, the female equivalent of Jarvis her mother had invited along from Italy when she married Howard. She pushed her vegetables around the plate for a few seconds before pushing back from the table. “May I be excused? I don’t feel very well.” Without waiting for an answer, she left the table and raced upstairs to her room, letting the door shut with a dull thud as she began pacing back and forth.

Toni attempted to focus on what had happened. She had been in the lab. Friday had been teasing her about her choice of design in regard to the gauntlet… And then she had woken up. But what happened between that?  
  
As she focused, her head began to hurt, a slow, throbbing pain that escalated the longer she dwelt on that line of thought. The pain became so immense that she was seeing stars behind closed eyelids, and she was distantly aware of something warm trickling from her nose. Fighting to push past the pain and remember something, _anything, damn it_ , Toni gasped as she felt a slight burn descend from her shoulders and down her back.  
  


Feeling the pull of unconsciousness, she stumbled over to her bed and climbed in, noting distantly that it was a much more comfortable place to pass out on than the cold metal workbench she tended to frequent during these episodes. _Go figure…_ she thought, everything fading to black.


	2. Chapter 2

Toni isn’t really sure what exactly made it click with her that she wasn’t stuck in some surreal dream. She had woken up in the same room in which she had passed out, still small, unscarred, undeveloped, and reactor-less. Jarvis had come up to her room to check on her, bringing along her favorite meal of smiley-face pancakes and hot cocoa. After subtly fretting over her, he gave her the day off from her lessons to ensure she got some rest. She had spent the day shuffling about the manor, drinking in details she was sure she had forgotten.

Perhaps what sealed the deal for her was what happened later that evening. As she was preparing for her bath, she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror next to the vanity. Wide brown eyes stared back at her as she took in the view of her back.

Black ink swirled down her back in a long, continuous line that wound itself into an intricate pattern. The ink, which covered her entire back (though, to be fair, Toni was less than pint-sized at the moment), shimmered and seemed to almost be moving.

Dumbstruck, Toni backed closer to the mirror, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. In the back of her mind, the design struck her as somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Then she noticed a piece of the design that was different from the rest. At one of the tips of the line sat a mossy green leaf, which shimmered with a rhythmic pulse. _Almost like a heartbeat,_ she thought faintly, absorbed in the view. After noticing the leaf, she regarded the design as a whole and concluded that it could possibly be a tree, albeit a naked one.

“Well, that makes total fucking sense,” Toni laughed breathlessly. “I have a naked tree tattoo on my back.” She stretched, trying (and failing) to reach around to touch the ink. Suddenly, the door opened after a sharp knock, and Rosa bustled in, ready to help her young charge with her bath.

Toni spun around, eyes widening at the prospect of someone noticing the design. Cursing the huge mirror behind her which left no part of her back blocked from Rosa’s view, she waited for the woman to react.

Rosa glanced over at Toni, taking in her state of half-undress with a raised brow. “Are you planning to bathe in your jeans, Antonia?” she inquired dryly, turning the tap to fill the bath.

Toni blinked, glancing back at her reflection to see that the design was still in plain view. “Um.”

“Come now, Antonia. It’s getting late, and you have a big day tomorrow. Let’s get you washed up and to bed.”

Toni allowed herself to be steered toward the bath and kicked off her pants before climbing in. Pausing, she glanced at Rosa, who seemed to be settling in to stay until she finished. “Rosa, may I please have some privacy?”

The older woman’s grey brow raised again, this time in surprise. “Are you sure?”

Toni could understand her confusion; at this point in her life, Rosa had helped her with almost all of her baths and was always entirely welcomed in doing so. This was probably the first time Toni had ever asked her to leave, although she recalled this being around the age she started seeking independence. “Yes, please. I’ll be fine.”

With a small nod of her head, Rosa left, closing the door behind her. Waiting a few seconds to make sure she wouldn’t come right back, Toni lifted herself up above the bubbles, twisting around to see the design again.

Still there, slightly soapy, but still there. As Toni contemplated it, she felt a sense of relief and reassurance flow through her. Intellectually, Toni knew that the unexplained appearance of some weird-ass mark on her back should be freaking her out, not doing the exact opposite. Somehow, seeing that tattoo made everything seem more real.

That, and the fact that there were too many things that not even Toni’s mind could recall so clearly. Almost-eidetic memory be damned, there had come a point in her life when she realized that she couldn’t remember the smell of Jarvis’ favorite cologne (a realization that was followed by a six-day bender that had Pepper issue her first genuine threat to leave if Toni didn’t pull herself together). But now, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the subtle scent that followed Jarvis everywhere was the same scent she had become so familiar with in her childhood.

Still staring at the tattoo in the mirror, Toni couldn’t shake the feeling that she had been given a second chance. And hey, she’d heard of stranger occurrences. One of her most cherished friends spent a decent (or indecent, depending on your perspective) chunk of his life as a ten-foot-tall green rage monster, and that was just the tip of the iceberg that was her social circle.

The tattoo pulsed, shining more brightly for the length of a heartbeat, and Toni felt her resolve harden. She sank back under the bubbles, brown eyes glinting and brain working at a dizzying speed as she began to plot.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Really, Ms. Stark, you must pay attention and finish your work,” her tutor, some bland, boring person whose name she’d never bothered to learn, growled in exasperation. “How do you expect to get anywhere in life if you can’t focus on this simple task?”

It had been two weeks since Toni had awoken, and suffice it to say that she had been driving everyone in the manor crazy. Toni hadn’t been the perfect child, by any stretch of the imagination, before that day, but there was something almost tangibly different about her. Before, she had been energetic, curious, quick to ask questions and denounce things she deemed too easy for her. Now… She hadn’t lost any of those qualities, but she was suddenly _more_ , and no one seemed to be able to keep up with her.

“That’s the problem, Nelson (“It’s _Dr. Jenson!_ "). The task is _too_ simple,” she drawled, balancing her pencil on her nose as she balanced her chair on its back legs. “There’s no challenge, no thrill in completing it.” She fell forward, the chair’s front feet hitting the hard wood with a loud thud. “In short, it’s boring and beneath me, and I do believe I’m finished here.” Tossing her pencil on the table, she climbed off the chair and headed for the door.

“Wait one second, young la—” The tutor surged forward, grabbing her forearm roughly.

Toni didn’t think, she just reacted. One second she was facing away from him, being held in place by someone more than twice her size and the next she was staring impassively at the man gasping for breath on the floor beneath her. She bent over, really looking at his face for the first time. A distant memory stirred in the back of her mind, bringing to light uncomfortable lessons and borderline-inappropriate touches from the man in front of her.

Face blank, she leaned in and whispered, “Not the brightest move you’ve ever made, Nelson.” Then she threw her head back and screamed.

Seconds later, Jarvis burst into the room, followed closely by Rosa and a few of the men under his direction. “Antonia—” He halted, taking in the scene before him.

Toni, who had been playing the media and others around her for as long as she could remember, scrunched her face up and widened her eyes, an expression she knew from experience tugged at others’ heartstrings. “H-he grabbed me and-and—”

Jarvis’ face, which had clearly showcased his fear and confusion, hardened as he cast a flinty-eyed glare at the man on the floor. “Remove him,” he intoned, stepping aside to allow the two men who entered with him to do so. Ignoring the sputtering former tutor, Jarvis knelt beside Toni and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. “Are you hurt, Antonia?”

Something inside Toni stirred restlessly at the idea of lying to the man who was practically the only father she ever really knew, but she clamped that down, reminding herself that, even if the man hadn’t aggressed toward her overly much during this session, he had done so before when Toni was unable to defend herself. So she sniffled and showed Jarvis her arm, where a large bruise was already blossoming.

The next hour involved Jarvis making some phone calls, somehow managing to maintain poise and dignity while ripping the agency that had recommended Jenson a new one. Yet again, Toni’s tutoring sessions had been suspended after Jarvis decided he needed to sit down with the other tutors again and really hammer home the consequences of their treatment of Toni.

Toni, more than okay with this development, had gone back up to her room and waited. In the two weeks she had been here, she’d been steeling herself for what was going to happen tonight: her parents were returning from a business trip in Monaco they had left for on the night before Toni had woken up (which, looking at it through the lens of her adult memories, Toni knew was just an excuse to visit Howard’s casino). She had several mixed feelings about the reunion.

For one, she was tiny, and she hadn’t exactly inherited her lack of height from Howard ( _I’m looking at you, Mammina_ ). She wasn’t thrilled at the thought of him looming disapprovingly over her. And then there was the plethora of memories she had of the man, most relating to things that hadn’t even happened yet. She wasn’t sure how she would react upon seeing him again.

But then there was her mother. Beautiful, sweet Maria Stark. Her relationship with her mother had always been somewhat strained, but that had been Howard’s fault (and, by extension, Toni’s—she’d never approved of Toni’s methods of gaining his attention). Despite never paying any attention to his wife, he couldn’t stand it when Maria wasn’t fawning over him. This left Toni with very little time alone with her mother, and she had always cherished it. And this time around, she was ready and willing to fight for it. She bared her teeth; Howard had no idea what he was in for.

Some time had passed, and Toni found herself standing in the foyer, tugging irritably at the itchy collar of the dress Rosa had wrangled her into. No amount of grumbling or persuasive pleading had fazed the woman. If anything, Toni was sure she had been laughing at Toni’s indignance. She glared petulantly up at Rosa, who remained unfazed as she deftly tucked a stray lock of Toni’s hair back into place.

Glancing at the clock, Toni debated running for her room and grabbing a pair of jeans, but was interrupted when the large, wooden double-doors swung open, revealing a sight that stopped her in her tracks. It had been years since she had so much as looked at pictures of her parents (voluntarily, at any rate), and she’d gone out of her way to avoid doing so since she woke up. But now…

Howard looked younger than she remembered—which, fair, he was eleven years younger than the last time she had seen him. He stood tall and proud, conversing with Jarvis with a fond expression on his face. Suit perfectly pressed and not a hair out of place, he looked every inch the successful billionaire who had made everything out of nothing. Toni had the fleeting wish that he’d look at her with at least some portion of the fondness he was directing toward his longtime friend and employee, but gritted her teeth and shoved that thought as far into the recesses of her mind as she could.

Instead, she turned her attention to the other arrival, and her breath caught in her throat as she took in the laughing face of her mother. Beautiful, soft black hair fell around her face in elegant curls and pale painted pink lips quirked up in a humored smile. She had been focusing on something Jarvis had said, but, feeling Toni’s stare, turned her eyes toward her daughter. Her smile widened, and she set her bag down, throwing her arms wide open and kneeling down.

“Bambina! How I’ve missed you!”

Toni wasn’t sure when she had moved, but she suddenly found herself wrapped in an embrace she hadn’t experienced in what felt like a lifetime. “Mammina,” she whispered, burying her face in the older woman’s neck.

Running her fingers through the younger Stark’s hair, Maria sighed. “I hate these long business trips. I’ve miss you so much, Antonia, you can’t even begin to imagine.”

Toni let out a watery giggle, clinging more tightly to her shirt. “I missed you, too, Mammina.” She would have been content to just stay like that forever, but knew she would only have a few more seconds of it.

As if on cue, Howard cleared his throat impatiently. “Antonia, what’s this I hear of you running off your tutor?” His tone was stern and ever-so-slightly annoyed, and some things just don’t change.

Jarvis stepped in, firm yet deferential. “If I may, sir, that was not the young miss’s fault.”

Howard scoffed, eying Toni. “I’d like to hear her view of it, Jarvis.” He stared at her impatiently. “Well?” he prompted when she didn’t answer instantly.

Toni had thought of what she would say to her father when she saw him for the first time. She thought about apologizing, but realized, what would she be apologizing for? She was six years old, she hadn’t had time to do anything wrong yet. Then she thought she may suck up to him, try to make the next few years as pleasant as possible (she quickly binned that idea; it hadn’t worked the first time around, and she didn’t have anywhere near the necessary amount of patience and self-control for the job now). Ultimately, she decided to be as unassuming and unnoticeable as she could be, at least where her father was concerned. If she stayed out of his way, he wouldn’t be able to find things to harp on or flaws to throw in her face. With that in mind, Toni opened her mouth…

“Well, he touched me inappropriately and has been doing so for the past few sessions I’ve had with him, so I laid him on his ass.” _Filter? What filter?_ Toni paused, belatedly adding “sir” just for the hell of it.

Howard stared at her, confusion and surprise having taken place of the irritation. Maria’s hands stilled in her hair, and she could see her eyes widen in her periphery. Jarvis coughed delicately, the corners of his mouth suspiciously upturned.

Toni took a moment to appreciate their reactions. Jarvis had had two weeks to get used to Toni’s behavior and personality change, and this was barely a blip for him. The last time Howard and Maria had seen her, Toni’s vocabulary had been slightly more limited, and she had never spoken so forwardly to Howard.

Shaking off his confusion, Howard frowned sternly, drawing himself up to his full height. “Antonia Edys Stark, what—”

Reluctantly detaching herself from her mother, Toni cut him off. “Besides, he was a bumbling idiot. When he wasn’t busy leering at me, he was blundering through the simplest of subjects.” She buffed her nails on her dress, peering up at Howard through her eyelashes. “Did you even check for credentials when you hired him?” Kissing Maria on the cheek, Toni skipped over and grabbed Jarvis by the hand. “Jarvis, I’m hungry. Will you please, please, please make me a peanut butter sandwich?” Not giving him a chance to respond, she began dragging him toward the kitchen, grinning in delight as they moved further from her sputtering father.

_So much for unnoticeable_ , she thought in amusement. But this approach would be ever so much more enjoyable, and Toni never really had been one for denying herself any fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so. This is a thing I've been wanting to write for a while. I love fem!Toni stories, and I feel like there's not enough of this pairing to go around. Plus, who doesn't love second chances? A lot will be changed throughout the story regarding the movie plots, but it'll work (probably). Let me know what you think?


End file.
